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Because the clarinet only has odd harmonics in its spectrum, octaves in multiphonics are impossible. But there are a few that come very close, in a way that I find interesting and rather beautiful. These aren’t perfect octaves by any means. But the ways in which they come close produce some totally unique multiphonic sounds. They are close, beating multiphonics that vibrate in the mouth of the player and sounds almost sung.

They aren’t easy to play, but they aren’t as difficult either (I think). There are definitely dyad multiphonics that are far trickier.

The notes inside () represent pitches that you cannot separate in the multiphonic. Pitches are, as ever, transposed.

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It is a big priority for me to keep the content of this blog free, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to do so. Setting aside the time to create new content is one issue, and the blog also costs rather a lot to keep online because of all the space required to upload audiovisual content.

I’m dependant on Patreon in order to be able to continue my work on the blog. It so far hasn’t generated as much interest as I’d like, though I’m regularly assured that this is simply because people don’t know about it. So here I am saying…it exists! Please help!

And it’s also because you don’t necessarily get anything special by being a patron. Until now: from now on, new blog content will go to patrons first. Four weeks later, it will appear on this site. So to get all those tasty multiphonics and interesting new techniques as and when I finish the content, you need to be a patron.

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I am now giving live workshops – this aims to serve as an introduction to clarinet and bass clarinet writing. Approximately two hours in duration, it aims to cover articulation, sound production, multiphonics, glissandi, microtonality, air sounds and preparations. It provides composers an opportunity to ask questions and to hear examples live. I use a lot of score samples as well, so your students have ample opportunity to see how things can be notated.

If you’re interested in having a workshop at your institution, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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It takes anywhere between 2 and 10 hours to create each blog post.
If you found this blog useful, and if you’d like to see more,
you can support me on Patreon for less than the cost of a coffee

Two months ago, I decided I wanted to do a post on easy Bb clarinet multiphonics. I wanted to compile a list that composers felt they could use without worrying about whether the clarinetist would be able to execute them. I knew I couldn’t possibly do this alone, so I created a survey: 36 clarinetists from various musical backgrounds took part, and played through 44 different multiphonics (40 that I myself consider to be easy, and 4 that I consider hard – my “control” sample, if you will). These multiphonics were taken from my own home-made database, which has a total of 208 multiphonics. And from our experiment, 27 multiphonics have made the final cut: the easiest of the easy.

Twenty-seven multiphonics composers can use without worrying about whether they can be produced or not!

The breakdown of participation looked something like this:

For each multiphonic, the clarinetist would have to mark their ease of play on a score out of 5:

1 – Very easy. Can more or less play straight away, speaks well with pitches mostly balanced.

2. Easy. Took a few tries, but can get a consistent result now.

3. Takes a few tries, and this speaks at least 50 percent of the time when I try to play it.

4. Difficult. Doesn’t speak easily.

5. Can’t get this multiphonic to speak at all.

The response from an exceptionally easy multiphonic would look something like this:

with over 70% of respondents listing that multiphonic as “Very easy”, and another 16% as “Easy”. I’ll present this chart in terms of three categories of easy multiphonics: those that achieved a score of over 90%, those over 80% and those over 60%.

Interestingly, the 4 hard multiphonics I put in weren’t hard for everyone – but the results ended up being a lot more scattered, like for multiphonic #105:

Quite a few of the respondents also offered some great advice in their comments:

If you’re having a hard time producing one, it could be worth trying a different reed.

Another tip is to first play the top and bottom pitches of each multiphonic, so that you have a clear sense of the sound you’re aiming to produce

Using multiphonics is a great way to teach young players breath support, embouchure and oral cavity shaping (and these 27 will hopefully be a great place to start!).

A few people have flagged the question of clarinet make, and whether you play a Buffet, Selmer, or Leblanc will make a difference. I — perhaps foolishly — didn’t collect any data on this. Make probably does make a difference, but I suspect not in the case of the multiphonics I’m publishing today, since the success rate for different players was in general fairly high. (Obviously these are all intended for Boehm-system clarinets, as is everything on my website.) Perhaps this is a good area for future research!

A few people flagged up a couple of these as not having the right pitches – thanks to those that took the time to do this, as I’ve fixed the three here that were just a result of my own errors.